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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
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Four young immigrants from the Soviet Union scored a major upset Monday night here at the American Contract Bridge League's Spring Nationals.

One of them is Irina Levitina, who six years ago lost a playoff for the World Women's Chess Championship. She left Leningrad three months ago to join her brother, Ilya Levitin, in Teaneck, N.J., and they have a highly skilled bridge partnership.

Their teammates are two players from Kharkov, Simon Satanovsky of Brooklyn and Michael Prahin of New City, N.Y., and the four won their second round match in the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams by the substantial margin of 73 imps.

Their victims were a group with solid credentials: George Rapee and John Solodar of Manhattan, who have both won world titles and came close to another six months ago in Geneva; two Polish experts, Pyotr Gawrys , also a former world champion, and Krysztof Lasocki; and a father-and-son combination, Ralph Cohen of Memphis and Billy Cohen of Las Vegas, who have both won recent national titles.

Two other teams with New York City area players scored upsets. Paul Morris, Gene Prosnitz, Jim Sampson and Ira Ewen were part of a squad that beat Howard Weinstein of Burr Ridge, Ill., and his team by 5. And Debbie Zuckerberg, Phillip Martin and Bruce Rogoff, with Sabine Zenkel of Chicago, beat Ed Lewis of Falls Church, Va., by 10.

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The Soviet foursome, lacking American credentials, was seeded 85th in the field of 90 teams. Today they faced a strong squad headed by Marty Bergen of Farmingdale, L.I., and led by 13 imps after 16 deals in a scheduled 64.

On the diagramed deal against the Rapee team, Satanovsky as West led a heart against three no-trump. South won in dummy and led a spade, hoping for two spade tricks, three clubs, three hearts and a diamond. Prahin put up his king and shifted to a diamond, driving the ace from the dummy when the eight was covered by the nine.

Another spade lead lost to West, who reverted to hearts, a play that shattered the North-South communications. After another spade lead and another heart lead, South was cut off from his club king. And if he had unblocked dummy's club honors he would have been cut off from dummy's spades.

In the other room Levitin became the declarer in the same contract, and had no trouble when the defense led and continued clubs. He was able to establish his spades, and his commications were intact.